To grade the quality of cotton fiber, the United States uses a classing system that is based on both machine-measurable qualities and trained classifier evaluation.When a bale of cotton is ginned, a sample is taken from both sides of the bale. That sample, after being assigned a permanent bale identification tag, is sent to a U.S. Department of Agriculture cotton classing office where it is tested with a high volume instrument for strength, staple length, length uniformity, micronaire and color.The sample is then passed to a trained classer who assigns a leaf grade and looks for other problems such as bark and grass in the cotton. A class is assigned based on the high volume instrument readings and classer evaluation.That class grade is then entered into an electronic database, which stores the data of every bale of cotton produced in the United States .

Cotton Incorporated works closely with retailers to promote cotton to consumers.

2005 David Meister, Saks Fifth Avenue

According to Watson, 95 percent of all cotton falls into five classes.

A standardized grading system allows an objective evaluation to be made on a product that is by nature not uniform.To further help cotton users choose the appropriate cotton for specific product needs, Cotton Incorporated has an Engineered Fiber Selection (EFS) inventory management software that searches an inventory to locate the bales that best match the product requirements.

“The idea is you use a raw material that's just good enough to produce a product that's acceptable to your customer,” said Watson.“That's the whole idea behind any cotton purchasing strategy.You don't buy the best cotton possible, you buy the lowest-quality, least-expensive cotton that is consistent with making a product that makes your customer happy.That's what we can do with EFS.”

According to Watson, more than 90 percent of the cotton processed in the United States uses the EFS software. However, the international market is expanding as well.“There are now more than 20 mills internationally that use the software,” said Watson.“To get the software, we're going to require you to use a certain percentage of U.S. cotton. From the U.S. cotton perspective, that ties them into using a fairly significant percentage of U.S. cotton.”

Despite its advantages, the EFS software can only be used to select U.S. cotton because it relies on the bale classing system, which is a grading system used only in the United States. “Each major cotton producing country, over the years, has evolved its own cotton classification method and has its own standards,”Watson said.“International cotton trade and cotton usage would be enhanced if we had as much common terminology as can reasonably be applied.We would like to see the uniform commercial application of classing technologies, so that if someone tells me that a cotton is 34 millimeters in staple length, I know what that means whether it was classified in Spain or in China or the U.S. or South Africa.”

This sentiment seems to be shared by some in the international cotton community. In fact, the theme for the International Cotton Advisory Committee's (ICAC's) upcoming 64th Plenary Meeting, to be held in the United Kingdom this September, is “Industry Standardization: The Key to Trade Growth.”The ICAC, headquartered in the United States , is an association of more than 40 governments of cotton producing, consuming and trading countries. According to the ICAC, the meeting theme “emphasizes the underlying purpose to enhance opportunities for expanded trade in cotton as a component of a healthy cotton economy.”

As such global trade increases, cotton is destined to remain as popular tomorrow as when it was allegedly first used in clothing more than a thousand year

May/June 2005